


Devil's Leap (Torchwood, 1/1)

by sevendeadlyfun



Category: Torchwood
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-29
Updated: 2010-08-29
Packaged: 2017-10-11 07:49:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/110098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sevendeadlyfun/pseuds/sevendeadlyfun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>"That film was beautiful," Ianto breathed out and Jack stood closer to the trembling, mesmerized man, standing as guide and shield.  "All those acts performing for us. Part of history, trapped on film forever."</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	Devil's Leap (Torchwood, 1/1)

  
  
  
  
  


**Entry tags:**

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[devils leap](http://sevendeadlyfun.livejournal.com/tag/devils%20leap), [night travelers](http://sevendeadlyfun.livejournal.com/tag/night%20travelers), [torchwood](http://sevendeadlyfun.livejournal.com/tag/torchwood)  
  
  
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Characters: The Night Travelers

Rating: Hard R

Spoilers: Season 2, Episode 10 **From Out of the Rain**

  
Summary: _"That film was beautiful," Ianto breathed out and Jack stood closer to the trembling, mesmerized man, standing as guide and shield. "All those acts performing for us. Part of history, trapped on film forever."_

A/N: My first Torchwood fic and it has nothing to do with any of the actual members of Torchwood. I actually don't see me writing much Torchwood fic. But the characters of the Ghost Maker and Pearl really grabbed my attention. This is my interpretation of a fragment of their past.

  
He doesn't remember a world not seen through the filter of her. She shines, a strange intensity out of place in her world, their world, the world. What he does, what he's become, all because of her and it pleases him.

Pleases him because what he feels isn't strong. He's disinterested in the world, viewing it through the prism of her and of desire. Desire for more, stronger, now. Desire to be more than his father than chemist who lived a dull life in an even duller village, proud that he'd never ventured more than five miles in any direction.

He watches her, her graceful ballet an extension of the water in her veins. She ebbs and flows like the tide, mercurial as her bitch goddess the sea. She tells him tales of her life and they are all, in one way or another, a lie. He doesn't care. She stays with him because he gives her a freedom no one else can. The before is gone and in the now, he is the only one who tastes the salt of her sex, his greedy tongue savoring the brine that trickles from her body.

He beckons the crowd closer, gesturing towards where she dances. Her fluid movements stir a whispering sigh, and the breath below him excites him. How many will he guide into his flask tonight, those final shuddering exhalations stored safely in his waistcoat pocket? Two? Three?

She named him, and he takes the names she gives him. The traveling show she calls Joshua Joy, her salvation and her pleasure. But he is The Ghost Maker, a taker of souls. He fancies himself a highwayman, snatching the only swag that matters: immortality.

He calls to the marks, and his voice is frenzied. But as he watches her, the crowd falls away. She is enchanting and her slender arms weave out a coded siren song that draws him in. Her faintly blue skin shines under the lights, glistening with the droplets of water that never seem to dry.

"Come and see the amazing Pearl," he announces dramatically. As the crowd watches him watching her, his voice deepens. This voice, this man, was born when Pearl crawled from the sea, offering her damp skin and thin body to a boy ready to take the devil's leap. "She lives in water. She sleeps among the waves. She can reach the bottom of the oceans. She has swum the seven seas. She is the nearest thing that you will ever see to a living mermaid. She will take your breath away."

And so she does, later that night. Six new sighs live inside his flask, and she claps her hands in childish glee. The rain that follows swallows their caravan, shrouding them in torrents of spray. The rain is hers, and he watches as she cavorts in it. Her mouth opens and her throat works furiously, drawing down gulps of fresh water.

This is what he needs. Forever to see her malicious excitement at the mingling of death and life, forever to feel her moist flesh clasped around him. He'll find some way to make this last forever, to take that final devil's leap with her.  
  


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**Devil's Leap (Torchwood, 1/1)**   
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End file.
